Colin Firth and Mark Strong Spook Nicole Kidman in Trailer for 'Before I Go to Sleep'

Nicole Kidman-Colin Firth collaborations gets its middle piece in “Before I Go to Sleep.” Breaking up the biopic trend those other two follow, their next collaboration is a full-blown thriller that, as directed by Rowan Joffe (“Brighton Rock”).

Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, and Mark Strong in "Before I Go to Sleep."

Somewhere between this year’s “The Railway Man” and next year’s “Genius,” in a loose and unintended trilogy of Nicole Kidman-Colin Firth collaborations, comes “Before I Go to Sleep.” Breaking up the biopic trend of the other two films, their next collaboration is a full-blown thriller directed by Rowan Joffe (“Brighton Rock”). Kidman plays a woman whose short-term memory loss causes her to question her environment. A previous trailer shows her husband (Firth), trying to assuage her fears, who is undercut by a doctor (Mark Strong). Who's on her side? Surprise: shades of Hitchcock's "Suspicion," her beau is a little hard to trust.

The preview sells a high class thriller of the sort where violence and sexual intrigue play a larger part than mere titillation. There is, of course, the chance that things could quickly go off the (ahem) rails, but Joffe earned points with 2010’s “Brighton Rock” — which, while not a box-office breakout, did if not a huge mover, was an atmospheric cut above the norm. We're rooting for three good actors who, frankly, don’t always get the best film work, even (especially) if the material at hand is a bit of pulp fiction.

Watch the trailer below before it arrives in theaters on September 12: